Tuesday, February 5, 2008

The Five Albums I simply can't stop listening to

(No matter how hard I try)

1. Weezer: The Blue Album

Perfect. Everything about this album is awesome. Half the tracks are radio singles, the other half are still pretty awesome. Original songwriting, unique old-meets-new sound, highly personal and insightful songwriting married to some excellent musicianship makes for deliciousness.

2. Against Me!: Reinventing Axel Rose

The vigor of idealism coupled with the bitterness of homelessness! Add a radical agenda and POOF: AWESOME ALBUM.

3. The Anniversary: Designing a Nervous Breakdown

Despite deciding to suck on their next album, this one delivers emo bliss. The Anniversary couples a classic emo outfit with a moog synthesizer. I loooooove their sound.

4. Motion City Soundtrack: Commit this to Memory

Remember what I was saying about moogs? THESE GUYS HAVE ONE TOOOOO. And it's produced by Blink 182's Mark Hoppus. Their Pop sensibility serves them well. While they fall apart a little later on the album, I find myself coming back again and again.


5. The Darkness: Permission to Land

Just . . . what the fuck? I can't take these guys seriously. Every time I pop in the CD, I see the lead singer in a white spandex singlet. And yet . . . Their ability to turn hair metal on its head and their blazing guitar solos bring me back again and again. It's just fun to listen to. I can't stop myself. Kill me, master! Kill me!!!

Friday, January 18, 2008

You Can't Catch Me . . .

I have found the worst Wii game that ever was made. And it is called The Ninjabread Man.

So, when you think of a game, a few niceties pop into your head: little things called "plot" or "characters" or even "usable controls." Ninjabread Man eschews all of these things for nonsensical, impossible, pointless platforming and the opportunity to be eaten by food.

Well, I guess it's not true that there's no plot. I found the plot in the instruction booklet. By accident. While trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Apparently, "Sweetworld" has been ruined by the evil "Toothrotters" which are evil cupcakes, pieces of cake, and . . . bees. I don't get it either. And you have to . . . fight them? I guess?

That doesn't make any sense, though. Gingerbread is as much a sweet as cake or bees! Why would they be fighting? You know what? I'm just not going to think about it anymore. Let the twisted developers have their bee cake. It hurts my head trying to invent plot where there is none.

Anyway, so the point of every level is to get to the teleporter at the end of the level to get to the next level. You have to curse your way through frustrating jump puzzles until you collect enough items to move along. Maybe even that wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the atrocious controls.

First off: props to Ninjabread Man for trying to make a game entirely with the Wii motion controls. I understand what they were going for. The problem lies in their failure to realize accurate movement detection. For example: To jump, you must move the nunchuck up. This works about 60 percent of the time. The hit-or-miss nature of the controls becomes a major frustration early on. It makes simple tasks like performing a simple jump puzzle or attacking an enemy incredibly difficult.

The idea had potential. A gingerbread man who is also a ninja is funny. But this game . . . this game is not funny.